Frontlines
{|style="width:100%; color:#FFF;" |valign="top" style="padding:5px;"| Chapter 1: Steel, Concrete, and Men "Take cover! The UNSC are in the city!" yelled one of the conscripts before he was ripped apart by a Scorpion's 90mm gun. The troops near him were in shellshock, most of whom were fresh conscripts into the war. One, who had a package of C-12, sprinted ahead of the UNSC tank column, and planted it in the road. Detonating it while they moved over it, two of the 5 Scorpions were blown to bits. Up in the air, a battle was still raging between the warriors of the sky. Murphy was in his Mustang II, and had been in a dogfight with some hotshot UNSC Skyhawk pilot. Finally, after about 10 minutes of high G turns, the UNSC pilot slipped up, and fell right into Murphy's gunsights. The Chief Warrant fired his twin 20mm rotary cannons, and sent the Skyhawk plummeting into the now burning city. Over the emergency radio frequency all troops heard "This is General Augustus Autumn. New Washington is now a frontline city. Repeat, New Washington is a frontline city. Initiate plan PALADIN." Now Murphy had free reign over what to blow up to slow the UNSC advance. First he chose the four main bridges leading into the city, dumping whatever and whoever was on them into the water. The CWO continued bombing the UNSC forces, slowing them down, and giving the troops in the city more time to set up ambushes. But after about an hour, a flaming Pelican, rocketing along at terminal velocity, slammed into the back of his Mustang II. Now in shock of the hit, he pulled the lever between his legs, and came crashing out of the cockpit. Landing in a field 2 miles outside the city limit, Murphy took cover in a wheat field as a UNSC Warthog column moved past. Opening the door to the nearby barn, he found it was no barn, but rather a hidden cache of weapons and body armor. He suited up, and began trying to get back to his troops. Caught by a squad of 7 UNSC troops, Murphy attempted to raise his weapon, but found his hand was broken. To compensate for this, he propped himself up against a rock and fired away with his other arm, downing all 7 of them before passing out due to the massive amount of pain. Chapter 2: Oppenheimer's Deadly Toy Meanwhile, beneath the plains of Harvest, in a bunker, rebel engineers were putting the finishing touches on a captured F99 Wombat armed with a nuclear warhead given to them by the Venezia Rebels. Waiting until the UNSC Frigate Apache came into range, they guided the F99 into it, detonating the warhead, vaporizing the ship, taking another chunk out of the UNSC's fleet. Meanwhile, aboard the UNSC heavy frigate Saint Petersburg, Nick-113 began cursing and swearing about the destruction of the Apache, knowing it would be tough to pull some out of the Home Fleet, and tougher to get them to Harvest quickly. In his mind, he was a wreck, as now 113 knew the rebels had high grade nuclear weaponry, and possibly other WMDs. Meanwhile, at New Washington, the rebels had set up a long range artillery piece, including the nuclear shells, also from Venezia. Looking at the UNSC gathering up in the city, the rebel battery commander gave the order to fire. The 280mm cannon, nicknamed "Atomic Annie II", by its crew, bucked back as the shell fired. In the city square of New Washington, Master Gunnery Sergeant Pete Stacker was leading his platoon through, looking for enemy POWs. Surveying the area, he compared the amounts of aircraft wrecks to the amoun of estimated rebel aircraft, and around 70% of their air force had been wiped out. Looking up, he saw a bright, flare looking round heading straight for them. Thinking it was a regular round, he ducked, and the last thing he felt was the shock of the round, and then a little bit of the heat. Across the city, the energy of a small sun exploding in midair killed thousands of UNSC troops in the blast radius, overturned columns of Scorpion tanks, and threw planes around like they were in a dice cup. But that would be the only Godlike destruction the rebels would be able to inflict during the war, as soon after, the artillery piece was destroyed by a Longsword on a routine patrol, along with the rest of the nuclear warheads. Chapter 3: War Is Shit When Murphy awoke from his pain induced coma, he was strapped to an interrogation chair in a tiled room, with one window from the observation deck, and a steel door out. A voice spoke from the observation deck. "Who are you?" Murphy responded "Kiss my ass!", which began a heated exchange. -Who are you, and where were you born? -Fuck you! I will not tell you UNSC plebes anything about me or my country! -You do not want to mess with us Chief Warrant Officer Murphy. -What are you going to do? Huh! That's right, nothing, walk out! Murphy, being the nutjob he was, used this as an opportunity, and managed to slip out of his restraints, which were just belts holding him down. Using his broken hand to pull out of one, he then unlocked the other. But this newfound freedom was not to last. As he went over to a locker, he found his equipment was there, and suited up, injecting some biofoam into his broken hand. But with this, the steel door opened, and a figure slammed him against the wall. When he looked up, he recognized the face, and gave a scowl as he reversed the hold and hit who he now knew was Jill-001 against the steel interrogation chair, breaking her nose with a sickening wet crack, splattering cartilage and blood on the chair and floor. But that did not faze her, as she immediately got up and grabbed Murphy, throwing him down to the floor and restraining him, allowing her to put him back in the chair. Now completely out of patience, she grabbed him by the collar and screamed at him "You will tell us where the tunnels and missiles are, or I will make you feel pain beyond your darkest nightmares!" "Ha!" responded Murphy "I have already felt that pain back on Reach in 2552, during the test!" Jill responded by shattering 3 of his ribs, making Murphy howl in pain. Even after this, Murphy decided not to squeal on his comrades, only angering Jill more, and almost making her kill him, before she was restrained by Nick-113 and the man in charge of the interrogation called it off, leaving Murphy to his fate. Re breaking his hand, the CWO again got out of his restraints, and, thankfully for him, there was a sympathizer guarding him, who opened the steel door, and let him out. Stumbling around outside the compound, Murphy was eventually picked up by a SAR team, and taken into the main rebel bunker for medical treatment. Chapter 4: Anything Goes